Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett

When Blur's Damon Albarn and Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett went to follow their wildly and unexpectedly successful Gorilaz project-- upwards of 15 million records have been sold worldwide-- they rather oddly chose another simian theme: Journey to the West, a 16th Chinese tale starring a character named Monkey. Along with opera director Chen Shi-Zheng, the pair themselves journeyed to the East to soak in Chinese culture and begin the treacherous process of adapting one of China's most beloved tales into first a modern opera and, later, a soundtrack album featuring the stage production's musical themes but re-cast in a more pop context.

Incredibly, both worked. Albarn, who has spent much of the decade increasingly engaging with African music-- both in his own work and with the reissue label he co-owns, Honest Jon's-- has been able to navigate cultural tourism and oddly position himself as sort of a pan-global messenger in much the same way David Byrne has functioned since the 1980s. With Monkey, he's grafted his own melodic sensibilities onto music written in the strict five-note Pedantic scale and come away with a record that, while challenging to most Western ears, leans enough on warm electronic tones to sound both familiar and head-turning at the same time.

We spoke to Albarn and Hewlett about how Monkey started and where they hoped to take it, the return of Gorillaz, and such controversial subjects as the disintegration of the West, why Africa is the future of the world, cultural tourism, and Vampire Weekend.

Pitchfork: After the success of Gorillaz, you must have had your choice of projects. When [New York-based opera director] Chen Shi-Zheng approached you, what attracted you guys to this particular story?

JH: Well it wasn't-- it was Alex Poots [artistic director] from the Manchester International Festival who came to us first. We had done work with him about a year before; we opened the Manchester Festival with five nights of the [live] Demon Days project. And he said, "Are you interested in this Monkey project?" And we were promised a trip to China, so we thought, "Hey, we'll go to China, check it out, see what we think." And if we don't like it, or don't like the people involved, at least we got a free trip to China!

We get offered a lot of really stupid projects we say no to, but we don’t really get our pick of many exciting projects. We knew the story of Monkey, we grew up with the TV series. We didn’t agree to anything until after our second trip to China. That's where we really got interested.

Pitchfork: What happened on those trips then that made you change your mind?

JH: The first trip, we spent three weeks traveling around China with Shi-Zheng, seeing the incredible country and culture. We came back with our heads spinning, and we got along very well with Shi-Zheng. We loved the story-- it's an opera-- and that's sort of an ambitious idea.

DA: I don’t think we made an opera. I don't think you could call it an opera. It's something in between so many different sorts of genres. It's really doesn't have a name.

JH: People feel like they have to give things titles so that people know what it is they're going to see. It’s not really an opera; it's something else. I don’t know quite what it is yet, but it has evolved. This is what happens when you get a visual artist and a musician and an opera director together, what the three of them bring to a project.

The audience going to see the Monkey show range from eight-year-old kids to old people, and everyone seems to enjoy it. The one thing that's different about it is that it does appeal to everybody.

DA: The record in particular, kids are listening to and it has these kinds of interludes. It’s easier for them to use their imagination as opposed to song-led bombast. I hope it would have a similar sort of effect that things like Peter and the Wolf would have had. It's a record positioned in the pop world that can also expand the brain a bit.

Pitchfork: Did you guys each have any experience with opera before this?

DA: Hardly any. For us it was the journey to China, and the revelation, really, of the country itself. That's the reason why we wanted to do it. It's a very different place, China-- the sun rises on a different day, and the culture's extremely old. In a way we're very unaware of it in the West, even though we’re very aware of it. I don't think the Olympics revealed anything more about China. In fact, it might have terrified people, maybe. It terrified me.

JH: There’s an unseen China out there that we were very lucky to experience.

DA: China is one of those vast, continental conglomerates that...I mean, if they were to start a tourist trade in China, they'd just bus people in from another province, you know what I mean? They're very self-contained. The fact that they can generate such extraordinary migration within their own society is something which is remarkable, you know? Their ability to self-organize is quite extraordinary.

Pitchfork: What impressions that you got from the Olympics were sort of false?

DA: Well, the Olympics is always strange. You can't help but be sort of carried away in the euphoria of, say, [Usain] Bolt and his extraordinary running skills, but generally I felt that even though it was an extraordinary spectacle, I don't think we learned much more about China. I think it was a missed opportunity on their behalf. But you know, that's the way they work, the Chinese. They will not be dictated to. I think the most important thing-- and really, the reason why we made the record-- was to sort of try and forge some sort of genuine connection.

Pitchfork: Did you guys feel a responsibility in some sense? You’re exporting one of the oldest and most often-told stories in Chinese culture to a new audience.

DA: Yes, but I mean it’s quite abstract, our version of it.

Pitchfork: Inherently, you guys are two westerners re-contextualizing this. As much as we don’t know about modern China, this is a centuries-old story where the idea of the west, in the context of this tale, is India. The world ends there. How did you guys avoid slipping into that sort of pastiche?

DA: Well, that's very difficult. That's why we went on the epic mini-journey, to sort of really work out what it really was about China that fascinated us. We felt we connected to it, and how it revealed itself to me was sort of up in the mountains; the semi-autonomous regions down to the south where the Dong and the Mao people live: in the traffic, in the green tea, in the extraordinary landscapes, the food, the insane neon, the industry-- the crazy, crazy industry.

We've developed to a point in the West where we're overdeveloped and we've really got to work out how to put the juggernaut in reverse somehow. They're very much in forward motion. That is an extraordinary thing and to me, that's why I wanted to make a record. I wanted to convey a bit of that somehow.

Pitchfork: Did you hope that there’s a reflection of Western society in that same sense? Even going back to the Good, Bad and the Queen record, it definitely has a sense of decay.

DA: I'm English, and I started off as a songwriter, so I can’t really escape that, it’s there. An English songwriter/composer, working in Mandarin and trying to find something about Chinese culture that I really relate to and respect and feel some genuine emotions for-- and it’s quite hard, the pentatonic scale, and that, in a way, is why I think it works. Because I'm forced to limit myself to quite strict rules about what I did. Maybe that's how I avoided pastiche.

Pitchfork: Obviously that kind of five-note scale is very extreme. Is this the first time you’ve ever set up any sort of limits for yourself when you worked?

DA: Yeah, the more you limit yourself, the more you have to be creative within those confines. It's quite exciting: How can I free myself from myself?

Pitchfork: Jamie, most of the things you’ve done in some ways is sort of the opposite, where you create your own universes whether it was Tank Girl, Get the Freebies, or Gorillaz. You’re creating your own worlds and here you’re working with someone else’s starting point. Was that difficult to put your own identity in that?

JH: You have to be a bit more disciplined. You can't go off on flights of fancy and just start creating any old crazy shit that you want. You have to sort of consider what you're doing. But I think we both found that working on a classic story was actually a really enjoyable process. It was all there for us-- the story was written, the characters exist-- and we're doing our interpretation of a fantastic story. And if you're very excited about your subject, then you can't really go wrong.

The Gorillaz process, where we're making it up..I like that; I enjoy that.

DA: We're going to make a Gorillaz record, and I think the whole process has been incredibly positive for us. Now that we've done this, how can we go back and make a fantastic piece of pop culture?

JH: The experience, three years doing this, has probably broadened our creative net.

DA: We're not trying to sort of, you know, intellectualize ourselves out of the pop world. I think we can come back and make a really fantastic record because we've gone and done that, instead of immediately going into another Gorillaz record. We're ready to come back to the world of pop music.

Pitchfork: Is it easier for you to move back and forth between pop music and other things because, with Gorillaz, you've been able to shed your pop identity? When you return to pop, in many ways you're not returning as a celebrity.

DA: That would be the most depressing thought I can imagine, really; you're a celebrity having cache is sort of rubbish.

JH: I think we've made it enjoyable for ourselves when we're working in that field because we really can do anything. Damon's not tied to being in a band that has an identity and a style; I'm not tied to a similar thing in my field. We can work with who we want; we can do what we want. That total freedom means that you're enjoying what you're doing and you're involved in what you're doing, and that gives you the opportunity to experiment and have fun. If you're having fun, if you're working with people you love working with, then the results are always going to be exciting. I can't see us doing a bad Gorillaz album because the process is all about enjoying ourselves.

Having said that, there's always a first...you never know. [both laugh]

Pitchfork: I assume you sort of agree with Jamie, Damon. You spent so many years writing for one particular set of players, one particular brand, one fixed identity--

DA: It's a fantastic way of working, and if you get the right combination of people it can be a wonderful journey. I prefer this to be honest.

Pitchfork: When you guys say you're doing another Gorillaz record, is this the film soundtrack?

DA: Making another pop record.

Pitchfork: So the film is not going to happen?

DA: We were never going to do it at all. That was actually...really, that was the end. We came back from holiday and I think we both really-- well, we're doing it now.

Pitchfork: Do you have people in mind that you're working with?

JH: We haven't asked them yet. We go through a list of all the people we want to work with and then phone them up, and they either say, "Who the fuck are you?", or they go, "Oh yeah, cool, that sounds fun!"

Pitchfork: Returning to your experiences with China again. Your album sold well; you were in the top 5 in the UK.

DA: I was really, really chuffed with that. That was the first Top 10 Mandarin record in Britain. It was probably the only one, as well, but you know.

Pitchfork: Do you sort of feel that, politically and culturally, we're sort of in a moment where China is things are accelerating--

DA: I think you'll find that in 10 years, a lot of children will learn Mandarin in school. In 20 years, Islam will be one of the biggest religions in Europe-- bigger than Christianity. Things are really changing, so in a way we wanted to make this record really get it right with the words and the sounds. Kids learning in the future schools, that's a great thing to pull out of the hat. That's the way I look at it-- I don't look at it as a record anyway half the time; as a performed pop record. It will be something that's not going to go in and out of fashion; it's not a fashionable record. It's something outside of that.

JH: Somebody described the Monkey album to us as a record that you have to have in your record collection, even if you only play it once a year. I kind of thought that was right, really. Once a year, you might get it out, pop it on, sit there with a glass of wine, and enjoy it-- then pop it back in your record collection.

Pitchfork: Damon, you've obviously done a lot of global music. Do you worry that there's any sense of tokenism to that-- introducing people to other cultures, standing in for other cultures. Or is that out of your control, how Westerners engage with your music?

DA: The point is, whether people like it or not, China is incredibly important to the future of mankind. For me, this is something that we all need to have intelligent discussions about in America, in Britain, in Europe. We need to really understand that their destiny and our destiny, Africa's destiny, etc., are all completely tied in. The argument for getting to know your neighbors is very compelling.

JH: It's wonderful to find cultures that are historically still intact, as opposed to a lot of Western cultures which seem to me to be slowly dying, stuck in celebrity illness or stupidity.

Pitchfork: Do you think that extends to music as well. Do you feel like there's a crisis in English music in general?

DA: What always irritates me is when I read about a band, I keep hearing their name, and I keep reading these sort of, you know, "They've come to save planet Earth." And then you actually listen to them and it's like...I don't know; it's just a really weird culture. We talk way too much about music, I think.

JH: We celebrate all these things that are really mediocre. It's very rare that things come along that are really new or original or exciting.

DA: Change terrifies people. They like new, but they don't like new with change, you know?

Pitchfork: England's always had a deserved reputation for valuing progression in music. Why and how do you think that shifted and changed?

JH: Well, for me, the reason why it's not as interesting as it used to be is because pop music-- the great pop music-- in Britain, was made by people who went to art school. That's really changed the whole culture from the 1980s onward. All the art schools are industrial design centers, and lost that spirit of allowing people at that crucial age to just go and hang out and not necessarily know what they want. There's not enough of that, and I think that's absent from the society, generally. There's not...kids and teenagers are not allowed to experiment enough.

Pitchfork: So art school is a lot more utilitarian now?

DA: Exactly. There was a time when every town had a little art school. All the great British bands, they all went to art school.

Pitchfork: Damon, there's been a huge recent uptick in interest in African music, particularly here in America. In the past few years, most of it was funneled through Western ideas. Do you feel any kind of engagement or connection with any of these bands?

DA: Vampire Weekend and Foals, that kind of thing? Yeah, but I find it hard to find the actual African influence but I'm sure that's more kind of in their heads. Sometimes you sit and talk about an influence and sort of expect that you're going to hear it. I don't think that's necessarily important.

The best way to get to know Africa, like China, is to go there and see what it is. To know somewhere that crazy and that magnificent, you have to spend some time among people, the rhythm of their lives. Every time I go to Africa, I see the future. I see what the Western world is going to become. It's a very futuristic place.

Pitchfork: In what ways?

DA: Well, as resources inevitably disappear, people have to make do with a lot less. You have to be much more ingenious with a lot less, and accept that you can't get your perfect tuna sandwich on a street corner.

DA: Coming back to the music, it's really important that Western musicians engage and project a bit of that futurism in their music. I think Africa is a very great place to go to sort of meditate on that.

Pitchfork: In the 80s it seemed like the interest in global music was a reaction to the synthetic and a search for authenticity. Do you think it's being done in a more healthy way now?

DA: In a more realistic way, really, actually listening to what it is. I think people are engaging in a very different way, but it's only the beginning...the beginning of an inevitable revolution that may come in our lifetime.

Pitchfork: Do you think it'll be something that the West benefits from?

JH: Well, I wouldn't look at it like that. It's something that we all learn from, learn how to be a bit more connected to the planet Earth as opposed to "X Factor" or "Pop Idol".

Pitchfork: Do you get the feeling that Europeans are learning those lessons?

JH: Sometimes I don't. I saw the audition for the new series of "X Factor", and in Birmingham alone, they had 150,000 people queueing up in the rain for two days to audition. At that rate, I think there's going to come a point where the whole of the UK will have auditioned for "X Factor". There are positive signs of engagement, but there's also shedloads of shit.

Pitchfork: Could you guys ever see yourselves living anywhere but London?

JH: Shanghai is exciting. Paris. New York.

DA: I could easily live in Africa. I've been to West Africa mostly. The last time I went, I went to Congo. Kinshasa is the wildest place I've ever been. It's so wild, the pavement keeps cracking and these huge, great trees keep sprouting: It's built on the jungle and the jungle sort of wants to come back. The civil war finished in 2002, and there's been no regeneration at all. It's still like a war zone. It's crippling; the poverty is crippling. Within that, there is incredible creativity because there's nothing. I heard music and sounds that I've literally never heard before.

JH: If you have nothing, you really have to create something.

DA: If we stop thinking that we have to have everything and start limiting ourselves, we'd be a lot happier.

Pitchfork: Damon, you had you'd seen Vampire Weekend.

DA: Yeah, I thought they were great.

Pitchfork: I don't know if you've heard this, but there's a rumor that--

DA: I pulled the fire alarm.

Pitchfork: Yeah, that the fire alarm went off at their London show, and you had pulled the plug on them and took off.

DA: No, I did pull my trousers down, but that's because I had an altercation with the doorman. He wouldn't let me take my drink out. I did leave as the plug was pulled, but it wasn't me and it wasn't anything to do with me.